The colours in this newly discovered phase of liquid crystal shift as researchers apply a small electric field. Credit: SMRC Physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder have become the first to ...

Scientists have created tiny disk-shaped particles that can swim on their own when hit with light, akin to microscopic robots that move through a special liquid without any external motors or ...

Nematic materials are made of elongated molecules that align in a preferred direction, but, like in a fluid, are spaced out irregularly. The best-known nematic materials are liquid crystals, which are ...

More than 100 years after a pair of imaginative physicists first proposed a new phase of liquid crystal, scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder have managed to produce it and have been left ...

(Nanowerk News) Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg and RWTH Aachen University have suggested a surprising connection between the nematic ...

A research team reported the direct measurement of dielectric tensors of anisotropic structures including the spatial variations of principal refractive indices and directors. The group also ...

Randomly positioned in parallel, nematic LCs react quickly to electric fields, which is why they are used in the great majority of LCD screens. Meaning "thread" in Greek, nematic LCs are monostable ...

Researchers at CU Boulder’s Soft Materials Research Center (SMRC) have discovered an elusive phase of matter, first proposed more than 100 years ago and sought after ever since. Nematic liquid ...

Polyisocyanides are polymers distinguished by their helical structures, where the helix's winding direction (right- or left-handed) can be controlled through catalysts designed for synthesizing chiral ...